Crowhurst historian slams English Heritage over Battle of Hastings plans

A leading Historian from East Sussex has accused English Heritage of conning people out of their money, following their announcement that the Battle of Hastings will headline their 2016 plans.

The charity, who own the Battle Abbey site, last week unveiled plans that would make the famous 1066 battle their signature attraction for their charity programme this year.

But Nick Austin, who believes the battle actually took place in Crowhurst, has condemned English Heritage for continuing to take money from people on an incorrect site.

‘It’s my duty to point out to people like English Heritage the mistakes they’ve made and those mistakes become massive when you start charging people to go to places which you know can’t be the actual site.’

Mr Austin, who has been investigating Crowhurst as a potential Battle of Hastings site for almost 30 years, was also critical of English Heritage’s preservation strategies, claiming they’ve failed to do their job properly.

He also suggested the reason the Crowhurst theory has been overlooked for so long is because historians are actually scared of what they might find.

‘They’ve failed consistently as an organisation. I thought they were there to protect English heritage but the whole infrastructure is just there to protect what they’ve got and not for establishing new sites or removing existing sites from the register which is what my work is aimed at doing.’

‘It’s all to do with the historical establishment not wanting to look at something that would be extremely embarrassing to all of the people that they deal with at a very high level.’